Ectober Shorts
by FiveRivers
Summary: Oneshots for the Ectober Challenge!
1. Chapter 1

**Hello. Happy Halloween. Or almost Halloween. So, I just started randomly writing stuff down for this, because I still didn't really have a good idea for what to do, and then this turned into the first meeting between Danny and the will-o-the-wisps in Amity Park (mentioned in my main fic, Mortified). Do you think that it turned out well? Feedback is always appreciated!**

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Day 1: Witching Hour

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Danny woke up staring at the underside of his bed. This was not an uncommon occurrence. In fact it was such a common occurrence that not only was the space under his bed meticulously clean and stocked with blankets, a pillow, and a tiny, battery-powered analogue clock (Danny liked listening to it tick), but Jazz had started to psychoanalyze it. It was Jazz's theory that Danny was subconsciously drawn to dark, secure places because of his ghost half and because of his trauma from being constantly attacked. Danny's theories were that he had yet to fully master his powers (which was incredibly frustrating, seeing as he'd had them for over a year now), and that Jazz didn't know the meaning of 'rhetorical question.'

The time wasn't particularly unusual either. The little clock told Danny that it had just barely struck two. He was often up this early, either in a desperate attempt to finish _some_ of his homework, or to track down ghosts before they did damage, or had damage done to them.

But he hadn't been doing homework, and it wasn't his ghost sense that had woken him up.

Naturally, he tried to go back to sleep, not even bothering to drag himself back up onto the bed. It was early and he was tired. Yet, no matter how he tried, he couldn't. It felt like someone had poured a cup of coffee directly into his brain. Which was terrible, because it meant that he was exhausted and awake at the same time.

He looked at the clock again. 2:16. He groaned, threw off his blankets, and rolled out from under the bed and into the moonlight streaming in from his window. It was a full moon tonight, and clear. He lost several minutes staring up at the moon, entranced. He had to see it without glass in the way. He had to go outside. _He had to go outside now._

Standing up, he hugged himself, suddenly not at all sure that this was just a case of insomnia. There was something calling him.

This wasn't the first time that something like this had happened, Freakshow and his staff came to mind, so Danny was wary about following this impulse, however benign it seemed. He worried at his lower lip with teeth that were, if he was being honest, a little too sharp to be human, and retreated to the safety of the space under his bed. Even if he couldn't get to sleep, he could wait this, whatever it was, out.

Moments later, he dragged himself back out from under his bed. He couldn't stay. He _had_ to go. The thought sent nervous jitters up his spine. He _had_ to go. He _had_ to.

It crossed his mind that he should tell someone first. Sam was the only one of the trio with a cell phone, and her parents had a tendency to randomly confiscate it, so calling someone was out. Jazz was right next door, though.

He gently pushed himself into invisibility and intangibility, and was overcome with giddiness and euphoria. He almost dove right out the window. But he regained control of himself before that could happen. He had to tell Jazz first, _then_ he could go.

He stepped through the wall, grimacing as he passed through Jazz's closet. He knelt by her bed.

"Jazz?" he said. Or tried to, at any rate. His voice _splintered,_ and splashed, scintillating like sun on rain, like moonlight on oil, and chased itself away to resonate in the corners of the room as choirs of nearly inaudible whispers.

That was new.

Then he tried to wake Jazz by touching her, but only succeeded in making her shiver as his hands passed through her intangibly. He couldn't make himself either visible or tangible for long enough to wake her. He couldn't stay visible or tangible for long enough to interact with anything. The best he could do was shift his perspective so that he didn't go through things, so that he felt like he was touching them, but he couldn't actually move anything. He knew that he wasn't really making himself tangible when he did this, he was only letting himself interact with the idea of the object. It was entirely in his head. It was like when he was standing on the floor while he was intangible. He wasn't really standing. He just thought that he was, or that he should be.

This was rapidly becoming disturbing. If he was in ghost form, he would be starting to worry about the house's weapons picking him up as a threat. As it was, he was in human form. He would be all but undetectable to humans and their machines. He still had to go.

He walked back through the wall, into his own room, and dropped himself through the floor, landing lightly on the kitchen table. He hopped off, and walked through the living room and the front door.

It was crisp cold outside, and the front steps were slick under his bare feet. First frost. He flexed his toes, savoring the sensation. This was better, but he was in the shadow of the building. He skipped out into the road, spinning when he reached the yellow divider.

There it was, hanging high in the western sky! The full moon!

He laughed, not caring if anyone heard him (they wouldn't, his laughter went the way of his voice, refracted into the crinkle of ice and the hum of halogen streetlights). This was what he had been afraid of? This was beautiful! This was excellent!

Danny raised his hands as if to touch the moon, and saw that, even though he was in human form, his aura was glowing bright. He frowned a little. No one would be able to see him, except for other ghosts, because he was invisible, but this was concerning. Was this something that was going to happen now, every time he went out under a full moon? It hadn't happened before. He shouldn't worry. This was fine.

He breathed out, a long curl of mist winding upwards from between his lips. He didn't know why that happened. His ghost sense was always colder than the air. Logically, it should sink, not rise. Maybe there were ectoplasm particles in it. That made as much sense as anything else related to ghosts.

But he _should_ look for the ghost that had triggered his ghost sense. Yep. That was definitely a thing he should do. He giggled, and this time his laughter rang like distant bells.

Something else giggled back, and Danny snapped to attention.

The ghost was small, about the size of a basket ball, perfectly spherical, and glowed bright and green. Danny squeaked. _So cute!_

Needless to say, Danny chased after it. It wasn't very hard to catch. When he did catch it, and snuggled it, hugging it close to his chest, it hummed and rang and played piano music at him. Danny, of course, hadn't the slightest idea what it was saying, but the sounds were _happy_ sounds, and the ghost was giving off _happy_ feelings, so Danny didn't see anything amiss.

It seemed to like what Danny was saying (something along the lines of _ohmigosh so cute cuddles let me squish you forever I love you_ ), however, because it let out a high-pitched trill, and suddenly there were a lot more of them, all of them different sizes and colors. The largest was fuchsia, and about the size of a beach ball, the smallest were pinhead-sized, and twinkled like stars.

Danny made a keening sound that was ghost for _I am very enthusiastic about this,_ and clapped his hands. He felt almost like he was five years old and in a pet store.

But where had they all come from?

Danny must have asked the question out loud, because the little ghosts swirled together, and then formed an arrow pointing to a small portal at the end of the street. Even as Danny watched, it shrunk and vanished. Then the ghosts crowded around Danny again, sounding like nothing so much as a symphony. Danny laughed. They _tickled._

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"So," began Tucker, as Danny snuck into 2nd period study hall. "Why are you late and does it have anything to do with why the Ghost Watch Early Morning Report was titled 'Invisible Orchestra Wakes Residents Near Park?'"

"Morning, Danny," said Sam, rolling her eyes at Tucker.

"Hi Sam," whispered Danny. "Sorta. You know how too much ghost energy makes me weird."

"Weirder. It makes you weirder, dude. You're already weird."

"Okay, whatever. Anyway, there are these cute little dudes, these ghosts, that're kind of like remora."

"Remora aren't cute," said Sam. "They're fish."

"No, I mean, they're, um, symbiotic, with other ghosts."

"Okay."

"So they take in energy from other stuff, and process it so that other ghosts can absorb it, basically, in exchange for protection. And, um, a lot of them showed up last night, looking for a place to, um, settle. They live in the park now."

"I get the feeling that you skipped the whole middle of that story," accused Sam, poking Danny with a pencil. "Spill."

"Yeah, well, at about two in the morning they showed up on my street just out of range of my ghost sense, but close enough that I could _feel_ them, because apparently finding a new home for them means finding a ghost they can be symbiotic with, and one of the ways they do that is by dumping a lot of ghost energy, and like I said, too much ghost energy makes me weird. So."

"So, you're late because you were high on ghost energy," said Tucker.

"Kind of, yeah," said Danny, blushing. "I, um, didn't realize what was going on, so I kind of just ran around and played with them until, like, six, and then Clockwork showed up and pulled me out and told them that I had a medical condition, and put me to bed, but I was too hyper so I flew over to Springfield, and when I realized what time it was and what I was doing, it was already eight."

"Dude, you have to call us when things like this happen. Sam thought that you had been eaten."

"I did not!"

"Anyway, what does that have to do with the invisible orchestra?"

"Oh. That's their language."

"Really? Weird. You going to try to pick that one up too?"

"Kind of have to. They live in the park, now."


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi. Going for a bit more of a horror vibe with this. Very short, but I was having trouble with this prompt...**

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Disappearance

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Danny Fenton was just the kind of person who disappeared. He would leave class, running out with a paper thin excuse, and be gone. Sometimes, for hours and hours. Other times, he would just not show up to school all, or show up really late.

It wasn't only at school that this happened, either. If you watched him at the mall, the Nasty Burger, or the store, you'd see him run off, leaving his friend alone, his meal uneaten, his groceries languishing in the aisle.

That was why no one particularly noticed, or cared, when he first went missing.

It took far longer than the usual twenty-four hours to get an Amber Alert up. It probably didn't help that his parents were convinced that he had been taken by a ghost, or that his friends and sister (his _sister_ ) had also been skipping class that day.

They had come home, though. Danny didn't.

Then a day had stretched into days, into a week, then weeks, a month, then months...

Then they found the body.

 _Then he came back._


	3. Chapter 3

**This is a bit more lighthearted.**

 **DB: That wasn't my intention in Mortified, but I guess I can see how and why you thought that. It isn't a terribly important distinction, though. I'm glad you're enjoying these so far. Thank you for the review.**

 **Insomniac Dormouse: Thank you for the feedback. I was a little worried that it was too generic, besides being short.**

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Day 3: Necromancy

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Necromancy: Divination by means of communicating with the dead.

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"I _hate_ him," said Hector, vehemently, hissing at his reflection. "He's going to kill me at this rate."

"I wouldn't worry about it, if I were you," said another voice.

Hector jumped and spun. He had thought that he was the only one in here. This was the supposedly haunted bathroom, after all, and in Amity Park you didn't take ghost stories lightly. Unless, of course, you were hiding from your bully.

At the end sink Danny Fenton, juvenile delinquent, general miscreant, son of the town's premier lunatic-inventors-slash-ghost-hunters, was cleaning blood off of his forehead. Hector stared at him.

"Your dad's going to get that promotion next week. You'll be living in LA by the end of the month." Fenton looked over at Hector, his eyes oddly intense. "That's a bad bruise. Do need help? I have some cream here that works pretty well."

"Pass," said Hector, backing away from the clearly insane underclassman.

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"Argh. When are we going to get our test results back?" demanded Star. "I need them before the party on Sunday."

"Tuesday," said Fenton, who sat behind her in this class. It was still ten minutes until class started. Fenton was unusually early.

"What!" exclaimed the blonde girl. "How do _you_ know, Fenton? Mr Falluca isn't even here yet!"

"He'll be late today. His daughter is sick. Then he'll be sick tomorrow. He won't have time to grade until Monday, and then we won't get them until Tuesday."

It was now that Star noticed Fenton's slightly unfocused gaze, and the bruise on his forehead. Her lips curled, and she scooted her desk as far away as it could go. Fenton had always been a weirdo.

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Sam and Tucker had noticed Danny's concussion right away, and were glad that they all shared classes. Danny didn't respond to head injuries normally. He tended to act more _ghostly_ , but not necessarily _impaired._ He said weird things, sometimes, and that was about it. However, considering that he had a secret identity to maintain... Yeah. Keeping him from talking to other people would be a good thing.

"When do you think the next Doom expansion will be?"

Of course, Tucker had no sense of gravity. Come to think of it, this kind of thing happened so often that it was basically routine for all three of them.

"It'll be announced on the twenty-seventh," said Danny, tracing lines on his desk. "They'll say that it's coming out in November, but it'll be delayed until the week before Christmas, because of a bug."

Tucker and Sam exchanged glances.

"What grade did I get on the test?" asked Sam.

"Eighty-five. You missed that last story problem."

"Dang," said Sam. "Where am I going to go to college?"

"Harvard," said Danny.

" _Nice._ "

"Hold up," said Tucker. "You think this is for real?"

"Why not?" asked Sam. "We live in a world where ghosts exist. Hey, Danny, who is the next ghost we fight?"

"Desiree."

"Cool. Tucker, remember, we can w-word her away."

"Right," said Tucker, still skeptical. "Where's my PDA?" he asked, under his breath, riffling through his bag.

"Front pocket, under your spare beret."

"Oh. Thanks. And he could have found that out some other way, Sam."

"Okay, then let's make this interesting. If I _do_ get eighty-five on my test..."

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"So," said Danny on Tuesday. "Is there any particular reason that Tucker is running around the track in his underwear and a chicken mask while singing Christmas carols?"

"No," said Sam, snapping a picture.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you for the feedback!**

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Day 4: Corruption

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There was a blackness creeping through the air and along the ground of the floating island. It smelled of rot and fire, and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Danny wanted nothing to do with it.

"That's what I need to fight?" asked Danny, reluctance edging his tone. He swallowed. "Does it need to be a fight? Maybe we could just... evacuate? Maybe, I don't know, quarantine it? I mean, it doesn't even have a body, or anything."

"Unfortunately, you do have to fight it, Daniel," said Clockwork. "This isn't something that will go away on it's own." He put a comforting hand on Danny's shoulder. "I will be here, Daniel. I know that you will prevail."

Danny laughed nervously. "That does help, yes. Oh, jeez. This isn't going to be fun."

"I am sorry."

"It's okay," said Danny, steeling himself. He began to drift down, stopping just before the blackness. It felt wrong. Oily. Dirty. Hungry. He couldn't help himself from hissing at it.

It hissed back.

Danny gathered an ectoblast, hoping to dispel the darkness as one would blackness. It didn't do anything, even when Danny fired straight into the murky mass.

He looked back up at Clockwork. Clockwork gave him an encouraging nod and shifted into his child form. Danny bit his lip and descended.

It was a good thing that he didn't have to breathe in ghost form, or he would have suffocated. The darkness was oppressive. It was a pressure. The light he held in his hands did nothing.

What was he supposed to do here? Why was he even doing this?

He could be home. He could be doing homework. He could be hanging out with Sam and Tucker. He could be pranking Dash.

His lips twitched up at that. Images flashing across his mind's eye. Dash, his locker overflowing with Fenton Wipe. Dash, soaking wet. Dash, sporting a bloody nose, his shoelaces tied. All the A-listers, jumping, running scared as lockers banged open and closed. All the people in Amity who mocked him, who attacked him, who slandered him staring up, wide eyed and afraid as he stood in the sky, his eyes shining like green stars, a storm brewing at his fingertips. He saw himself, laughing, as every evil thing ran before him, as he cast out each and every thing that could do harm to his family, to his friends, to Amity Park, to his people, to what was _his,_ as he destroyed them, as he burned them all to the ground, and he searched and found and _purified._

He saw himself laughing, laughing, laughing, finally happy, finally at peace, as all the power was his, as he kept everyone, everywhere safe, secure, and happy, _or else,_ and all the things who called him a _monster-_

Danny pulled himself out of the vision with a gasp, gagging on the oily filth of the darkness. How could he-? What had- What had that even been? He hugged himself. What was Clockwork making him do? He hadn't even told him what this _was._

Clockwork had no right to make him do this. No right at all. When this was over, he'd have to make Clockwork understand that. No matter what. He had to make him pay for-

Danny cut himself off again, recognizing the signs. It was this darkness, this oily corruption that was making him think like this, making him giggly and giddy. It was a drug, permeating his air, his clothing, sinking into his skin. As soon as that thought crossed him mind, he flared his aura, making it as hot and bright as he could, and then as _cold_ and bright as he could make it. The cold was a much more extreme and potent temperature. The oily substance on his skin burned and froze, dried and crackled, peeling off, clearing his mind.

He flared his aura again, ectoplasm and light pooling in his hands, even his eyes flaring painfully bright.

He had promised. He had promised again, and again, and again. He had _promised._ He would never become a monster. He would never hurt people just because they didn't like him.

His ectoplasm gathered around him in a tight shell, a scintillating shield, pushing back the darkness. He could see now. His suit was stained and torn, his skin sported dozens of tiny cuts, each bleeding bright green ectoplasm.

He charged his shield with 'cold energy' (gosh, he hated even thinking that, _the physics_ ) and light until it couldn't stand any more, until the shield shivered and pulsed. Then he let it explode outward, sweeping away the darkness.

Spent, he dropped to the surface of the floating island, distantly noting how blasted it was, how scarred. Something touched his back, and he flinched away, flipping over and gathering a few pathetic wisps of ectoplasm to his fist.

It was just Clockwork. He lowered his hand, breathing heavily, trying to organize his thoughts. A keen, high-pitched noise rose in the back of his throat, and he felt his eyes begin to sting. Clockwork swept down, folding Danny into an embrace.

He started to cry.


	5. Chapter 5

**This was a combined attempt at banter and the Weird Amity trope. I guess it turned out OK? I had two false starts with this particular prompt, so now I'm kind of generally annoyed with it...**

 **Thank you for reading, and please review!**

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Day 5: Harvest

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Amity Park was a nice place to live. It was also a very _strange_ place to live, especially after the first ghost invasion, but, if one were to be honest, it had been strange long before that. Long, long before that. The ghosts had just put the last nail in the coffin, so to speak, locking the town into strangeness.

Of course, the ghosts weren't the end of it. Amity Park had room to get stranger yet.

(All the strange traditions and old legends started to make sense. Old journals were in high demand. The Amity Park Historical Society took the ones in their archives, made copies, and a profit.)

Danny had seen most, if not all, of the strangeness. He had an intimate connection to it. He could sense it, feel it, soul-deep, with intellect and instinct both.

Now, with Sam and Tucker at his side, he was standing in front of the latest addition. As far as these things tended to go, this wasn't too extreme, but, for some reason, Sam was upset about it.

"Danny," she was saying, "the apples are _silver._ Metallic silver. Apples aren't supposed to be reflective, Danny."

"Yeah, so?"

"We have to do something."

"What?" asked Danny.

Sam turned away from the tree, and towards Danny, crossing her arms. "For the record," she said, "I blame you."

"And I blame you," replied Danny, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. This had become a joke, over time, much like the constant tongue-in-cheek references to Danny's death, and (un) living status.

"Well, as long as Desiree isn't involved, I guess we can live with that."

"Maybe you can, but, alas, living is beyond my grasp."

They exchanged glances, and then doubled over, laughing.

"Well, now that you two have gotten through your weird mating ritual-" Tucker deftly dodged punches from both Sam and Danny, "- what _are_ we going to do?"

"I don't know that we really have to do anything," said Danny. "It's just these trees here, and I don't think that anyone will come up and eat them."

"You mean, you think that everyone in Amity has common sense," said Sam.

"Oh. Yeah. That's probably a bad assumption."

"'Probably.'"

"But not everyone is going to be here to be tempted... Oh, who am I kidding. This has already managed to go viral, hasn't it?"

"Yep," said Tucker.

"How?"

"Someone took a video."

"When?" asked Danny, face scrunching. "This didn't happen all that long ago, did it? I mean, I only noticed a couple hours ago."

"Looks like one of the guys who lives here took a video."

Danny looked up and down the street. This was actually some distance away from Amity Park proper. It was in the library and school district, but outside of the urban growth boundary, on the other side of Amity Park from Elmerton. It was still well within the area that Danny considered 'his,' but it was definitely rural.

This was someone's apple orchard, a haphazard collection of ten or, no, eleven trees. He'd missed the one in the corner. Danny would bet that they were heirloom varieties, not the typical ones that you'd find in the store... Not that you could find silver apples in the store, but before they'd gone silver, they were still apples. These were old trees.

Seeing no one, Danny stepped off the road, hopped over the culvert, and into the little orchard.

"They don't feel dangerous," he said, walking under a tree festooned with small, very nearly spherical apples. He reached up to prod one.

"If you get heavy metal poisoning or something it's your fault!" said Tucker. "Ooh, the blame game. It _is_ fun."

Danny scoffed. "If I was going to get heavy metal poisoning, it would be from Skulker, or- Oh. Wait. Never mind, you weren't there."

"Oh, come on, you can't leave a sentence like that," said Sam.

"You know the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland? I ran into one of those in the GZ. Way more beavers than I expected." He prodded one of the apples. "Well, at least these aren't exploding."

"Dude, why are you prodding it if you expect it to explode?"

"I didn't _expect_ it to explode. It was just a possibility. Besides, you'd need a lot more than an explosion to kill me. Been there, done that, and all. Because a lot of things _do_ explode."

"Especially around you," agreed Tucker.

"You aren't going to eat that, are you?" asked Sam, as Danny pulled an apple free of the tree.

"Maybe," said Danny, turning the fruit over in his hands. The skin was slicker, cooler, than that of a normal apple. He sniffed the apple. It smelled normal. Then again, just about anything could smell normal for an apple. There were apples that smelled like roses, like honey, like alcohol, like grapes, like limes. Apples were weird like that.

He pulled a knife from his pocket. Sam had been trying to get him in the habit of carrying a mundane back-up weapon, although he refused to bring it to school. The knife had no trouble slicing through the skin and flesh of the apple, and had soon cut it in half.

"The seeds are silver too," he said. "But I think that otherwise it looks normal." He sniffed it again, and shrugged, prodding it once with an intangible finger, then dropping one half and shooting it with a ghost ray. "Seems to act normal," he said, looking at the burnt remains. He patted the other half on the skin of his arm.

"What are you doing?" asked Tucker.

"It's a simple poison test," said Sam. "A lot of poisons will irritate the skin after a while."

"Yeah, but I'm not what you'd call a good candidate. I deal with irritating things every day."

"... Hey," said Tucker, slowly. "What do you mean by-?"

"Oh, and there's the whole bit where my biology is radically different from yours." Danny paused. "You know, it occurs to me that we could just pick them all, if you still think they're dangerous." He glanced towards the house that sat on this bit of property. It was just barely visible beyond a stand of arbor vitae. "It would take a long time, though. It would be hard to not be seen."

"We could just ask the owners. Tuck, you still have that junior ghost hunter badge, right? The official-looking one?"

"Do you mean the one we conned from Vlad, the Ghostkateers one, the one we made in Danny's basement, or the one we stole from the Guys in White?"

"You have all of those with you?" asked Sam, actually sounding somewhat impressed.

"What, with me right now? No."

"Then why list them all?"

"You asked me if I still had them."

"I meant, do you have any _with_ you?"

"Yeah, the Guys in White one, and the one from Vlad. We drew all over the Guys in White one with crayon, though."

"What do you mean, we?" interjected Danny. "And why are you carrying it around? I thought that we agreed to get rid of it, because of the whole stolen government property thing."

"What do you mean, we?" Tucker paused. "There's something very wrong with us, isn't there?"

"Without a doubt," said Sam. "Give me the one we got from Vlad... Danny, what are you doing?"

"Forget that, how did you do that without us noticing?" asked Tucker.

Danny was currently floating two feet above the ground in ghost form. He shrugged. "Taking a leaf out of Jazz's book. Also, seeing if this looks different when I'm a ghost." Another shrug. "For the second question, you know that I can change without the rings, and you were distracted."

"We were holding a conversation with you, you nerd, and we'd better not find you writing psychological observations down in a notebook."

"I said I was taking a page out of Jazz's book, not checking out her whole library."

"Gross, dude, don't talk about checking out your sister."

"Yeah, Tucker does enough of that."

"Hey!"

"By the way, it's the same when I'm in ghost form. Thanks for asking."

Sam scratched the back of her head. "Weirdly, I'm not too worried about ghosts eating these."

"Yeah," said Tucker, digging through his bag. "Ghosts tend to have finely honed senses of self-preservation. Present company excluded."

Danny laughed. "Tucker, dude, do you not remember what Skulker did the first time we met him? He integrated a foreign, entirely unfamiliar, piece of technology into his body without a second thought"

"You're comparing yourself to Skulker? Sad. Here's the badge."

"Not just Skulker," protested Danny.

"He knows, Danny, he's just teasing you."

"Yeah, and I'm teasing him back." Danny touched down on the ground, and turned human again. "So, shall we go knock on the door?"

"Let's," agreed Sam.

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The owners of the building were skeptical. That was reasonable. 'Junior ghost hunters' were not, after all, a real thing. Even Vlad had only entertained the idea as a way to harass Danny. But the badge looked official, Sam could be awfully convincing, and the apples really might have been dangerous.

Danny flew back home for bags; it only took him a few minutes, even when he stopped to fight the box ghost. Then he, Sam, and Tucker spent an arduous two hours picking every single apple from the trees.

"Now what?" he asked, staring down at the bags.

"Dunno," said Tucker, sounding exhausted. "Chuck 'em into the GZ or something?"

"I kind of want to try eating one," said Danny. He held out his bare arm. "It hasn't done anything to my arm."

"They could still be poisonous, Danny. That test isn't perfect."

"Okay, seriously, how do you two know this stuff?"

"Um, Sam knows it because she's into botany. I know it because I read a lot of survivalist stuff, because I'm paranoid."

"Oh, it makes perfect sense, in that case. Except for the bit where you want to eat the mutant ghost apple."

"By that logic, I'm a mutant ghost human, and it should be perfectly fine. Look, I'm only going to take one bite."

"It isn't like you need to ask us for permission," said Sam. "I mean, if you're dead set on ending your half life, I can't stop you."

"Yeah, it was nice knowing you, man."

"Okay, okay, I get it, I get it. I won't eat any. We still need to figure out what to do with them, and I'm not dropping them into the GZ. Or burying them. Or setting them on fire."

"That's like, all the options, though," said Tucker.

"Yeah, and they're all bad ones. We drop them into the GZ, they come back as a monster with a hundred reflective eyes. We bury them, the seeds sprout, and we have the same problem, but more so. We set them on fire, it turns out that their weirdness is fire-related, or the smoke is some weird drug."

"You watch too many horror movies," said Tucker

"Blasphemy. Besides, my life is a horror movie, and, in case you've forgotten, that's all stuff that's happened to us before."

"Crap, you're right."

"We could take one into the GZ," said Sam, "see if your allies know anything."

"Yeah," agreed Danny. "I wouldn't hold out hope for that, though. Most stuff that happens in Amity is pretty unique." He paused. "That brings me to my second question. How are we going to get all of these home? Because I can't carry both of you and them at the same time."


	6. Chapter 6

**This is set in a bit of an AU. More details on the bottom.**

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Day 6: Unearthed

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Danny's head swiveled to the right as an intense shiver went up his spine. This wasn't his ghost sense. "Ah, heck," he said.

"What's wrong?" asked Sam, looking up from her vocabulary homework.

"Someone found it."

"Someone found what?" asked Tucker, still absorbed by his PDA.

" _It,_ " stressed Danny, shivering again.

"Wait," said Sam. "It, as in _it,_ it?"

"You mean they found your-" started Tucker.

" _Yes,_ " hissed Danny. "What do I _do?_ "

"One sec," said Tucker, looking down at his PDA again and typing furiously. "Oh, heck, Danny. The police and fire department are having their annual picnic up there."

 _"What?_ Why? Don't they usually have it in Marley Park?" asked Danny, naming the park at the center of town. "Why'd they use William Park?"

"Uhm. Looks like it was... Oh. Ghost fight damage. They've got construction work in there today. Water main. Oof. That was this last fight with Desiree, wasn't it?"

"Sam, Tucker, what do I do?" moaned Danny.

"Nothing," said Sam. "It isn't like there were any fingerprints, or clothes, your DNA isn't in any system, nor is Jazz's, or your parent's, and that's assuming that they can get DNA from it to begin with. There's no evidence tying you to it. Just leave it. They'll never make the connection."

"She's right," said Tucker. "They'll be looking for missing people, anyway. They won't find anyone that matches, because there isn't anyone that matches."

Danny whimpered. "I- Guys. They're digging it up. I can- I can't- I- I've got to go. I've got to go." He vanished.

Sam and Tucker felt the no-longer-eerie sensation of Danny becoming a ghost next to them. A chill, a sign of the presence of an agitated ghost, filled the room. Then, the chill, too, vanished.

"What do we do now?" asked Tucker.

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Captain Jones sighed as the body was revealed. It was small. Young. The Amity Park Police Department hadn't had a case like this since the ghosts showed up. Actually, they hadn't had a murder, period, since then.

Everyone thought that it had been a fluke when Daisy, the elderly corpse-sniffing dog, who was more of a mascot than anything else, had alerted to the spot. But there had been that odd cairn of stones, and no one had remembered it being there the last time they'd had the picnic up here, which admittedly was over five years ago.

So Captain Jones had called City Hall to see if there had been some kind of special circumstance, someone buried here who was supposed to be here. When he had gotten a negative response, he had called for digging equipment. There were grumbles, this was supposed to be a day off, but everyone had gotten to work.

Now they had a corpse. A child's corpse. One that had been here for at least a year, and probably longer, according to the medical examiner's initial assessment. One without any clothing, or identification, as far as he could tell.

"Okay," said Captain Jones, turning to the medical examiner. "If you're done, here, we should bring him up."

"Please," said a young, echoing voice, "stop."

The captain whirled, hand going to his gun. He, the ME, and the other police officers and detectives, were looking up, at where the voice came from. Some of them were pointing. A few had gone pale. A few feet over their heads floated Phantom, the most notorious ghost in Amity Park.

He was rarely seen except when fighting ghosts, or putting a stop to some other disaster. Most of the officers had a mixed view of him. He caused a lot of damage and a lot of trouble, but to the best of their knowledge, he had never directly hurt anyone, and he had put an end to a nasty hostage situation a few months ago. The fire department, which was waiting farther away, beyond the crime scene tape, had a much better opinion of him. He frequently helped evacuate people from house fires.

Captain Jones had never seen Phantom this close. He hadn't realized how young the ghost was. He hadn't ever seen him with that expression, either. He looked terrified, hugging himself tightly, as if he was afraid that he would break apart.

"Please," said the ghost again, "just leave it alone."

"You..." started Captain Jones, looking between the ghost and the corpse. "How do you even know about this? Did you have something to do with this?"

"Sort of," said Phantom, a haunted note lurking under his haunting voice.

"You killed somebody?!" exclaimed a junior detective.

"What?" said Phantom, head snapping towards the young woman. He sounded both shocked and offended. "How could you-? No. Never." His gaze slid back towards the grave.

"So how are you involved?" asked Captain Jones.

"I- Um." The ghost shivered violently. "I-" he cut himself off again. "It's mine," he said, finally. "Th-That. It's mine. It's me."

There were several sharp intakes of breath. Captain Jones felt his heart stutter. Somehow, he had never considered that Phantom had once been alive, and it sounded that he wasn't alone in that respect.

"It's you? This is your body?"

"Yes," said Phantom, closing his eerie eyes and shaking.

"You were murdered?"

Those green eyes snapped open again. "No! No. It was my fault. It was an accident. I just- I couldn't- It couldn't be found there, that's all, so I- I- I didn't know what else to do. I hid it."

"You buried yourself?"

Phantom nodded convulsively, and floated down, so that he was at eye-level with the captain. Now he was looking at anything but the grave. "Please, just bury it again, forget you saw anything. It's better that way. Please."

"Why?" asked Captain Jones, forcing himself to look directly at the ghost.

"I didn't want anyone else to be blamed. It was my fault, and only my fault."

Captain Jones didn't spend much time interviewing ghosts, but he'd spent most of his adult life interviewing witnesses and suspects, and he could tell when someone was lying, or not telling the whole truth. He fixed the ghost with his best police officer glare.

"I didn't want them to know I'd died," the ghost whispered.

There was something else going on here, something wrong with that statement as well, but Captain Jones let it go for now. "We can take your word that you weren't murdered," said the captain, "but we can't just ignore a body."

"Please," begged Phantom, again.

"We can make sure that you're buried again," said Captain Jones, "but there has to be an investigation."

The ghost whimpered, and vanished.

"Do you think he's really gone?" asked an officer.

"I don't know," said Captain Jones.

"Captain," called a social worker from outside the tape, who was the spouse of one of the officers, "captain, did you notice how he blamed himself? That's often characteristic of-"

"Of abuse, yes, I know," said Captain Jones, rubbing his face.

"Captain?" started a detective. "This is probably stupid, but I read a lot of ghost stories, and sometimes when a ghost doesn't want anyone to know that they've died, it's because they're faking being alive."

"Great. Just wonderful, Collins." He raised his voice, "All of you, whatever else you're working on, you're working on this now, too. Collins, you and Patterson are in charge. Find out who Phantom was, how he died, and why. I don't care what else you have to dig up or unearth!"

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 **So, my idea here is basically that when Danny was caught in the portal, half of him was replaced with ectoplasmic equivalents, but all that stuff had to go somewhere, so it basically just fell out of him, leaving a corpse. He couldn't leave it in the portal for his parents to find, though, so basically the first thing he did after recovering from the initial shock of 'okay I just died' was hide it. Danny is much more unsure of his status as a half-ghost in this AU, but basically everything else is the same. I suppose you could also read this as a Full Ghost AU, though.**


	7. Chapter 7

**So day 2 and day 6 unexpectedly got a lot of positive attention. Wow! I was worried that they'd come off as cliches. I'm not planning on continuing either right now, but maybe after November... I have to admit that even I don't have a clear mental picture of what had actually happened in 2. Thoughts? Feelings?**

 **Feedback is always appreciated!**

 **Happy Halloween!**

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Day 7: Spells

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"Haven't we tried this before?" asked Tucker. "The magic thing, I mean."

"Not this in particular," protested Sam. "Besides, it isn't as if we have anything better to do."

Danny looked up from his homework, taking exception to this. "You could be helping me finish this," he said. They were set up in Sam's basement for a sleepover. The night's goal had been to finish their group English project, which they had managed to do. Danny, however, still had math to do, a lot of math to do, and while he didn't mind Sam and Tucker not helping him, what they were doing now was distracting.

"Come on, Danny, that's not due until Monday," said Sam.

"No, this is the bit that was due _yesterday_ ," he said, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "I'm so far behind in math. Why does Mr Falluca assign so much homework? If he only assigned half as much..."

"I don't know," said Tucker. "I think that it's a math teacher thing." He tore his gaze away from what Sam was doing. "How many assignments are you missing, anyway?"

"Seven," said Danny, miserably. "I'm barely scraping a C."

"We'll help you in a second," said Sam. "Just tell us if we attract a ghost, okay?"

"Sam," moaned Danny, tipping back onto the floor, "why do you do this?"

"Well, it's good to know," argued Sam. "Just like all those 'natural ghost remedies' we tested. They could be useful."

"I don't classify attracting ghosts as useful," mumbled Danny. "I hope this isn't one of the ones that makes me weird, Sam."

"It doesn't line up with the other ones that make you weird," said Sam, peering at a sheet of printer paper. "But if it does, tell us, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Danny. "You know, this reminds me of the thing with the apples, only in reverse. You remember, the whole thing with common sense and self-preservation?

"I get it, I get it," said Sam. "But really, this should be harmless." She put a piece of paper with writing on it on either side of the candle she'd set up on the floor. Then she pulled a matchbook from her pocket, and lit the candle. She waited a couple minutes, and then pulled out a packet of salt (Nasty Burger brand) and sprinkled it on the candle. "Okay," she said. "Spirit, are you there?"

Nothing perceivable happened. "Did you get that from the internet?" Danny asked.

"Maybe," said Sam. Then she got a _look_ on her face. Maybe she had seen something that Danny didn't. "Okay, Danny, I want you to answer the next few questions with either a yes or a no."

"Okay," said Danny. He had returned his attention to his homework. He really needed to get it done. At least these quadratics were all plug-and-chug.

"Are you a boy?" asked Sam.

"Yes," said Danny. Okay, he had to reorder this one before putting it into the formula.

"Do you like space?"

"Yes." Was this the right way to write that?

"Are you popular?"

"No." Hah! He didn't even need a calculator for this square root.

"Do you like weird milkshake flavors?"

"My milkshakes aren't weird. What are you doing, anyway?" asked Danny, finally looking back up.

"Discovering that this works as a ghostly lie detector," said Tucker, grinning.

"No way," said Danny. The flame flared. Danny glared at it.

"Yes way," said Tucker.

"I told you it could be useful," said Sam. "Imagine if we had to interrogate a ghost. This would be perfect."

"I know another thing it might be useful for," said Tucker, slyly. "Danny, do you like Sam?"

Sam smacked Tucker, just as the candle flared to the right. Tucker started laughing. Danny stood, and looked at what was written on the paper there. He felt his face grow hot. Above a pentagram and a number of other symbols, the word 'yes' was written on the paper.

"Hey, Sam?" he said.

"What?" she asked, still glaring at Tucker.

"The next spell you test should be a curse, and you should use it on Tucker."

"Agreed."


	8. Chapter 8

**Happy Ectober 2019! This is the first entry for this year. It's kind of short, but I hope you like it. :)**

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Fangs/Shatter

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 _Shatter your preconceptions, let them lay upon the floor..._

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"Alright," said the Speaker, testily, "what joker put this on the schedule?"

Most of the time, the Speaker was, if not laid back about pranks like this, at least understanding. Politics were stressful, and slipping a little joke into the schedule was a relatively harmless way to blow off steam. But he'd had a hard day, and he didn't like being blindsided. Furthermore, this wasn't a private committee meeting, this was an actual session of of the House, broadcast nationally. A prank like this ruined the gravitas, and distracted from the real issues.

"What, sir?" asked an aid, nervously.

"I want to know who thought it was a good idea to put a 'presentation by representatives of the ghost king' on our schedule."

"Excuse me," said a black-haired woman in the audience, rising from her seat. She hadn't shouted, but her voice was pitched to carry. "I believe that would be us."

The Speaker scowled. Had he been spesking into his microphone without noticing? There was no way the woman should have been able to hear him.

"You put this joke in?"

"Yes sir," she said, "and it's no joke." She walked down the stairs to the floor.

"And you are?" The Speaker would order security to take her away in a moment in any case, but he had to admit to some curiosity.

The woman smiled, sharply, the light flashing off of her fangs. The Speaker blinked.

Suddenly, the woman was no longer alone, and her hair was no longer black, but white.

"We," she said, gesturing to the monsters behind her, "are representatives of the King of All Ghosts, my brother, and we are here to discuss how you have treated our people."


	9. Chapter 9

**Thanks for the reviews! :)**

 **This is sort of a continuation from Necromancy, which was chapter three. It also contains some OCs from Mortified, but you shouldn't need to be familiar with that to understand what's going on.**

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Tarot/Stalker

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It was known, in certain social circles of Casper High, that on days when Danny Fenton came into school with bruises on his head and a faraway look in his eyes, he could see the future, but not remember it. Well. At least, he could prophesy to it, and his prophecies were accurate. Disturbingly so.

Sometimes, he would give one out of the blue. He'd tell a freshman that their cat was going to die, or what scores everyone would get on the next test. He'd slide up beside the jocks in the senior class, and warn them about a party going wrong. He'd sit down at lunch time and spoil an entire week's worth of TV shows for someone- because the power was going to go out at their house, and they'd miss them otherwise; and it would. These would rarely be about anything more than a month out.

But if Danny was caught in the right mood, he could be asked about things. Things that wouldn't happen for a long time, for months, or even years. College admissions, marriage, sports, events, politics, friendships, contests, romance, deaths. No one had tested a prophecy that went out more than a few months, but he was rarely wrong, and when he was wrong, he wasn't wrong by very much. One student was wait-listed for a college, instead of accepted outright. Another found proof their boyfriend was cheating before Danny had predicted. A third managed to avoid being injured in that basketball game.

More importantly, on those days, his advice was always spot-on.

Hannah Weston had been observing Danny Fenton for a while. Unlike her older cousin, she didn't think that Danny was Phantom, that was kind of crazy, but she did have a soft spot for conspiracy theories and occult rumors.

Her current theory? Danny was some kind of esper. Or a necromancer, in the original sense of the word. His whole family was weird. Mad scientists. Everyone knew they had a lab in their basement, and they had done _something_ with the government, according to Amity Park's conspiracy message boards. They could have done... something. Something to make Jazz super smart, and to give Danny precognition.

And what was to say Danny didn't have precognition all the time? He certainly made himself scarce during ghost attacks. He always seemed to know when they were going to happen. His 'prophesy mode' always seemed to come on right after big ghost fights, too. Hannah's working theory was that his powers ran on ectoplasm (ectoenergy?), and the ectoplasm shed in big ghost fights overloaded him, and made him less careful about hiding his powers.

Of course, not everyone followed Hannah's logic, which is why she and some of the other 'socially neutral' girls were trying to corner Danny away from his ever-present protectors, Sam Manson and Tucker Foley.

It was so weird to think of herself as 'socially neutral.' Then again, considering all the ghosts, being a conspiracy theorist in Amity Park was almost respectable. Right along with the occult, and the tiny ghost-centric actual cult.

Which only made Danny's outcast status weirder. Whatever. No one said high school social dynamics had to be logical.

Their idea (not Hannah's) was that if Danny could already predict stuff well, then he could predict it even better with some actual fortune telling paraphernalia. It didn't make sense, as far as Hannah was concerned, but she was willing to humor her friends, and this was the only way she'd be able to ask him questions without Sam or Tucker shooing her off.

Not that she had anything really _pressing_ to ask. She was just curious.

She peeked in the classroom window. Her friend Mia had found out that Danny and his two friends hung out in this classroom during lunch when Danny was in a prophetic mood. It was mostly used for storage, so the teachers didn't care, even though students technically weren't supposed to be in there.

The PA system coughed to life, summoning Sam and Tucker to the office, as planned. Sarah, her other friend, had been in charge of that. Now it was Hannah's turn. She knocked on the window, and waved at Danny.

Danny came over and opened it. "I can help you, Mia, and Sarah," he said, before Hannah could repeat her lines, "but it's too cold by the field."

"Uh," said Hannah.

"We could go stand by the stairs to the roof, since the upperclassmen who smoke there got busted." Danny smiled absently, his eyes glassy. "I hope they stop doing that now. Smoking isn't good."

Hannah thought about it for a second. "Sure, let me text Mia."

"Also, I don't know how tarot works."

"That's fine."

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Sarah brought a magic 8 ball. Mia brought cards.

"I couldn't find a crystal ball," Sarah said, defensively, taking the toy out of her bag.

"It's fine." Hannah peered at Mia's cards. They were black and gold. "Those are pretty," she said.

"Thanks," said Mia. "My grandma got them for me for my birthday."

"So," said Sarah, slightly pink. She held up her magic 8 ball. "What should we do first?"

Surprising everyone, Danny reached for the magic 8 ball.

"Signs point to no," he said. He shook the ball.

Everyone leaned in to see the answer. The ball said, 'SIGNS POINT TO NO.'

After a few more minutes, it became obvious that Danny could accurately predict which answer the magic 8 ball would display every time. It became equally obvious that, as long as he had the ball, that was all he would do.

Hannah pulled the ball away. "Let's try the cards," she said. They were halfway through lunch, and as cool as the trick was, it got boring after a while.

"Oh," said Danny, face falling. "I don't know how tarot works, though."

"That's okay," said Mia, holding out the cards. "Just do what feels right."

"I'll try," said Danny, dubiously. He shuffled the cards. "I think Sam would like these," he said, running a finger over the gold foil back. "What is the question you want to ask?"

"You first," said Sarah to Mia. "They're your cards."

Mia licked her lips. "Tell me about what will happen if I become an exchange student." Mia had wanted to be an exchange student for a while. She was even taking Honors Spanish. Her parents, however, weren't enthusiastic about the idea.

Danny divided the cards into three piles.

He flipped over one card. It showed a pair of clasped hands, each wearing a bracelet. "It won't happen the way you expect it to," said Danny. He turned over the next card. It showed two flowers. "You'll go far away, but your plans won't help." He turned over the card on top of the last pile. It had a pair of skeletons on it. "You'll find something important, though."

"Er, you couldn't be maybe a little bit more... specific?" asked Mia.

"No?"

"I told you it wouldn't work," said Hannah. She was just a little smug.

"Sam and Tucker are looking for me," said Danny. "You shouldn't be here when they come up. Here are your cards."

"Thanks," said Mia. She and Sarah went down the stairs. Hannah lingered.

"Are those two ever going to get together?" asked Hannah, hooking her thumb over her shoulder.

Danny blinked up at her. "Weren't you listening?"

"Hannah!" called Sarah. "Come on, we've got to go."

"Well, bye," said Hannah.

"Bye," said Danny, waving. He stood up and stretched. That wasn't too bad. At least they hadn't asked for lottery numbers.

His concussion would be better by tomorrow.


	10. Chapter 10

Cauldron/Electricity

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The cauldron, or rather, the glowing green substance within it, bubbled and rolled. It did not boil. There was no fire beneath it. Lightning flashed, chartreuse, through the viridian clouds overhead. The air smelled of ozone, limes, and green peppers.

Sam stared down at the cauldron. She had no idea how she had gotten here. A ghost was probably responsible, in her life, ghosts were almost always responsible, but other that, blank. Nothing. Nada. Last thing she remembered, she had been brushing her teeth, getting ready for bed.

Was she dreaming? She dropped the long spoon she was holding, and pinched herself through her pajamas. No, it wasn't a dream.

Option two: overshadowing. The ghost would still be nearby. She felt for her wrist ray, but that, predictably, was gone.

She picked up the spoon. It was better than nothing, and the Fenton's had fought off ghosts with a mundane wooden baseball bat before. With the name Fenton on it.

The surrounding area didn't look promising. It was a high spot, almost craggy, surrounded by black, dripping trees. Between the color palette, and the odor in the air, this was almost certainly the Ghost Zone.

She hated being kidnapped. It played into too many stupid stereotypes. Also, it was being kidnapped, which was bad enough by itself.

She walked, placing her bare feet carefully, to where the ground started to drop off. Rough rocks and spindly, twisted trees laid scattered over a steep, almost vertical in places, slope. She could probably climb down, but it would hurt.

Down there didn't look all that great, either. She could see where the floating island dropped off into the great nothing of the Ghost Zone. Even of she did get down, there was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.

The other side was much the same.

At this point, she was really hoping that Danny knew she was missing, because she didn't think she'd be able to get out of this without him.

Lighting forked down from the sky, shockingly white against all the green, and dipped down into cauldron. Sam threw herself to the ground. She was not going to be toasted by ghost lightning. Danny had never told her or Tucker what being electrocuted felt like, but she could draw conclusions from the screams and thr tender, careful way he moved after fighting with an electricity user.

The lightning stopped. Sam raised her head, ears ringing. Okay, regardless of whether or not there was anywhere to run to, she was going to climb down to where she _wasn't_ the highest point ar-

A hand came out of the cauldron.

It was followed by an arm, a tuft of white hair, and then a body. A familiar body.

"Danny?"

Danny yelped, and threw himself backwards, knocking over the cauldron. He scrambled to his feet.

There was no sign of the ectoplasm that had been in the cauldron.

"Say something only Sam would!" he demanded, pointing.

"Uh," said Sam, mind going blank. "I think you should wear more black on a daily basis."

"You do?"

"Yeah, you could totally pull off the goth look. Where are we and what's going on?"

"You were possessed by this weird witchy ghost who had spells for ghost powers. She caused a bunch of trouble with love potions and curses and stuff, and she kept getting away when I tried to get her out, and when Tuck and I tried to ambush her in you room, she melted me, put me in a bottle, then brought me here and dumped me in that cauldron." He shuddered. "It's been hours."

Sam swallowed back a sour taste in the back of her mouth. "That sounds like multiple days."

Danny flinched. "Yeah, it's been a few. I'm sorry."

Sam took a deep breath. She was angry, but taking it out on Danny would be dumb and mean, and she'd been trying to be better about that kind of thing.

"Well, let's get out of here, and back home. If she's like any of the other ghosts we deal with, she'll be causing trouble."

"Oh, but I'm not like any of the other ghosts you deal with."

Sam spun to face the ghost. Like Danny said, her aesthetic was witch-like. She wore dark, loose, ragged clothing, and a tall pointed hat. Her skin was green, like most ghosts', but so were her eyes, and they were a deep forest green, barely glowing at all.

Danny inserted himself between Sam and the ghost, raised a hand and-

Nothing happened.

The ghost smiled. "It's good to know that at least that part of my spell worked properly. You are a most vexing subject to deal with."

"I do my best," said Danny. He glanced back at Sam.

She knew that look. No powers. Great.

"Who are you and what do you want?" asked Sam.

"My name was Vivian Davise. When I was alive, I was the strongest witch in North America. Real witch, mind you, not one of those children they murdered in Salem Town. But I died before I could pass on my skills." She smiled, too many teeth in her mouth. "Which is why I'm so luck I found you. You're perfect. You have the gift, and you have the inclination. You're even a descendant of mine."

So _that's_ why her name sounded so familiar to Sam.

"So why kidnap us?" asked Danny.

"Well, I need to know if she's the right one for sure, don't I?" She looked at Sam, and flicked her fingers at Danny. "Make this ghost your familiar. Once I do so, I'll return his powers and you can leave. My old books are on this island. They'll explain how to do it."

"And how long will that take?" asked Sam. "Humans need to eat, you know." She was already feeling hungry.

"Then you had better eat fast."

"What if we don't _want_ to do this familiar contract thing?" asked Danny. "No offense, Sam."

"It's fine."

"Well," purred the ghost. "That's not exactly up to you, is it? And don't try flying as humans. I've put safeguards up to prevent that." The ghot began to fade away. "Have fun!"

"Yeah, right," grumbled Sam.

"At least the sky is clearing up?" offered Danny. "And Tuck knows what happened, so..." he trailed off. He sighed, and flicked to human form before peeling off his coat and offering it to Sam. "You look cold."

"Thanks. I guess we'd better go look for those books." She frowned down the cliff. "I'm sorry about this."

"Don't be. You deal with my stuff all the time, and if we're apologizing for our ancestors, I should probably say something about one of mine trying to burn you alive."

"That's true."

Danny wound up giving his socks, shoes and jeans to Sam as well, then went ghost again so that both of them would be fully clothed. Neither he nor Sam wanted to try the climb without footwear.

Sam went first. Unlike Danny, she had some rock climbing experience, and thought it would be easier for her to find a safe path. Danny argued, of course, but Sam had the superior skill there as well, and won.

The climb wasn't _too_ bad, but there were a couple of rough patches where she lost her grip or footing and slipped. She lost a fingernail, which was sure to annoy her mother when she noticed.

She didn't look up, but she didn't need to to feel Danny radiating worry down at her. This had to be hell on his Obsession. She mentally braced herself for the reflexive coddling she would receive later.

Danny started down once she reached the bottom, and she helped direct his descent. She couldn't see everything from down here, and he definitely picked out hand and footholds she couldn't, but she still helped him maneuver him out of a few places that looked like dead ends, and he got down faster than she had. He spent a few minutes fussing over her hands, and pulling band-aids out of his belt. But, finally, he wound down.

"So, I guess we should start looking for those books?" he asked.

Sam made a face. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Hey, it's okay. Look on the bright side: You can learn magic! I bet that'll be really useful."

"If any of it's real, and not just her ghost powers and delusions," said Sam, pessimistically. She allowed herself a tiny smile. "But, yeah, it would be cool."

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To be continued in Artifact/Nursery Rhyme...


	11. Chapter 11

Artifact/Nursery Rhyme

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Danny scanned the ground to either side, looking for caves. It was probably bad to have preconceptions on a search like this, but he couldn't get the picture of the witch, Vivian, hiding out and plotting in a cave out of his head. He _was_ looking for houses, or other structures, as well, but not as hard.

He glanced at Sam. She'd been weirdly quiet this whole time. He hoped she wasn't too upset. He had tried, really tried, to get Vivian out of her, but it hadn't been enough. Sam had been overshadowed for days. That was more than enough to make _anyone_ angry.

But when Sam was mad, she usually didn't get quiet. She was loud, and vocal, and told you exactly what she was angry about. Unless she was angry that you didn't ask her to go to the with you, because she'd called the dance stupid half a dozen times, and then, well...

Quiet Sam was a _lot_ scarier than loud Sam.

At first, it had looked like she was blaming herself for what had happened, and Danny had, using techniques that usually worked on him, tried to maneuver her away from that idea. But what if she hadn't been blaming herself, and now she was angry with Danny for assuming she was? What if he had screwed up, and _now_ she was blaming herself because he'd put the idea into her head?

He was a terrible friend. Why couldn't he have been competent for once, and gotten the ghost out of her?

Well, one way or another, he was going to get them out of this. Even if he did wind up having to do that familiar contract thing. Between Dungeons and Dragons in middle school, and a whole heck of a lot of research into the occult when becoming a ghost, he knew that 'familiar' meant 'servant,' so he doubted it would be a fun thing. But if it was Sam, it wouldn't be too bad.

Probably.

She didn't try to get Danny to use his powers to break animals out of the zoo, or to vandalize car dealerships anymore, anyway. She wouldn't force him to do anything he didn't want to. Convince him? Yes. But not force him.

He exhaled, realizing he had been staring at Sam, and not looking for wherever the witch ghost had hidden her stuff, for the past several minutes.

He looked back up the slope just in time to catch sight of an opening about a quarter of the way up.

"Sam," he said, touching her elbow, and pointing. "Check it out."

She followed his gaze. "Shouldn't be too hard of a climb."

Danny nodded. "I think we might be able to just walk up if we go around a bit?" He made a zigzag motion with his hands.

"Yeah, let's try that."

It didn't take them very long to get up to the cave. Their previous experience climbing down had given them insight into how the ground here behaved. Once there, however, they spent several long moments staring into it, unwilling to go into the dark.

"It's a good thing you still glow," said Sam. "You did test out all your other powers, right?"

"Except for the Wail, yeah," said Danny, running through them mentally once again. "Ice seems to be working a little, and I can still transform," which she had seen, "but that's it."

"Ice?"

Danny pulled off his right glove (his right, never his left) and held out his hand. Frost momentarily blanched the tan surface of his skin before subsiding. "That's all that's happening, though."

"Might be useful," said Sam.

"Maybe. Okay, I'm going in."

His glow illuminated the cave softly, coolly, like moonlight. At first it only played over bare stone, and Danny groaned internally, thinking that the cave might be empty, but he kept going, periodically glancing over his shoulder to see Sam following behind him.

But, at last, when he was about to turn around, the edge of a table and the outline of books came into view. He hurried forward, and entered an area that looked a lot like a study. If a study had been built inside a cave. He picked up one of the books, and frowned at it.

Multilingual he might be, courtesy of ghost nonsense, but interpreting 'creative' spelling was not his forte, especially when it was on top of cramped, curly handwriting.

"Mind helping me find something to light these candles with?" asked Sam.

"Oops!" said Danny. "Sorry." He had forgotten how much better he could see in the dark than normal people. After a minute of searching, he found a pack of long matches in a drawer. He lit one, and started lighting candles.

"Thanks," said Sam, picking up a candle and using it to light others. "That's much better."

Candles lit, they sat down to flip through the books, stopping at any mention of familiar spirits and contracts.

Danny sighed as he got to the end of another one without any luck, and went back to the shelf. He supposed he didn't _have_ to put the books back on, but his book-loving sister had ingrained in him that not doing so was rude.

Then again, kidnapping was also rude.

"I think I found something," said Sam.

Danny walked back and peered over her shoulder. "This is for ghosts that can't talk," he said, after a moment of inspection. "Let's see if there's a better one." Sam turned the pages. "Maybe- Oh, no, this is for natural spirits."

"And you aren't?"

"No, it's a term for ghosts that are born ghosts. Keep going, though, it looks like this is the right one."

Sam turned a few more pages. "Okay, I think this one looks right."

Danny leaned in, scanning it. His shoulder brushed against Sam's, and she jumped. "Sorry! This one looks about right, though. And it doesn't look too bad?"

"Doesn't look too bad! Danny, are you seeing this?" she jabbed the offending page with her finger.

"Oh. Huh. Yeah, I guess it is kind of gross, but that's okay. It's not like it'd be the first time."

"It's talking about putting a _needle_ in your _eye._ "

"Yeah, but I've hurt my eyes before. They heal."

"What if it doesn't heal this time?"

"Then I'll have to get an eye-patch."

Sam lowered her eyebrows. "Don't you think we should try other ways of getting out of this, first? Maybe we can wait out whatever she did to you."

Danny tilted his head, and thought about it. "Are you thirsty?" he asked.

"Well, yeah, but it's not like we have any water, do we? Why are you asking?"

"Because humans can only last three days without water. If Vivian got you a drink before bed, and there's no guarantee she did, you've gone most of a day without drinking. Even if it doesn't go that far, you can wind up with kidney stones from getting dehydrated. That's what Mom says, anyway."

"I think you keeping your eyes is worth me having kidney stones."

"I don't. I especially don't think it's worth you dying." Danny felt himself droop. "It isn't just the water, anyway. I can't protect you like this. Who knows what Vivian will do if she thinks we're not making an effort."

"I hate giving in to people like her."

"It's tactical," said Danny. "Like with Vlad. We let her think she's won, then counterattack when she doesn't expect it."

"Well, when you say it that way, it isn't so bad, I guess." She sucked in her lower lip. "I don't want you to have to do this."

"I don't want you to have to do that, either," said Danny, pointing at a lower line. "But let's read it, and make sure we understand it completely before we start. Side effects, and stuff. And see if there's a way to undo it."

"And if there's another one, with less stabbing."

"That too."

.

"Ready?" asked Danny. It had taken a while to find everything the ritual- and it was a ritual- required, and once they did, they hadn't wanted to do it in the witch's cave.

Sam nodded, rubbing her palms on Danny's jeans. "As ready as I'm going to be."

Danny scooted across the rug they'd stolen from the cave, closer to Sam. He was careful not to disturb any of the chalky markings they'd drawn. Some of them felt... odd.

"It'll be fine," said Danny.

Sam looked down. "I know you think so, but what if it's a trap? What if it turns out like..." she lowered her voice, "the portal."

Both of those options had crossed Danny's mind. But Danny was pretty sure Vivian could have kept him in that bottle indefinitely. Whatever this was, it wasn't about him and his powers. Combined with her behavior back in Amity Park, Danny was pretty sure this was about Sam.

"Then we'll figure out where to go from there. But, right now, the important thing is to get you back to a place you can survive." This island most definitely did not meet that criterion, and Danny would prefer to find out if Vivian was lying sooner than later.

"Fine," said Sam, fingering the tip of the needle. "Let's get this over with."

"Your line is first."

They had actually already written the 'contract,' but actually putting it into effect 'magically' required ritual, rhyme, and a small amount of spilled blood and ectoplasm. The book had had several options to choose from, and they had picked the most appropriate and least dangerous-looking one. None of them were _perfect_ of course, because none of them compensated for the 'spirit' side of things only being mostly dead.

Hopefully, that wouldn't affect things too much.

"Right," said Sam. She cleared her throat, and looked down at the book. _"Tell me not a single lie."_ The words shivered, almost, but not quite, echoing. Sam turned the book so Danny could see it.

 _"Cross my heart, though I have died,"_ he responded.

 _"With me for a moment bide,"_ read Sam, her voice cracking on the last word, her hands trembling in anticipation.

Well, Danny wasn't exactly looking forward to this next part either. _"_ _Then stick a needle in my eye."_

Sam picked up the needle, then froze. Danny nodded at her and the needle encouragingly. She raised the needle to eye level, and paused again.

'Do it,' mouthed Danny. She bit her lip, and stabbed the needle forward.

Ouch. Yep, that hurt. Sam pulled the needle out, and Danny closed his eye, pressing one hand down on his eyelid. Watery green ectoplasm leaked out, dripping down his cheek. Ow.

Shakily, Sam continued on to her next line. _"Tell me the price I'll have to pay."_

 _"That is the one and only way,"_ said Danny, before she had even turned the book around. Odd, he had read the ritual through several times, but he hadn't thought he'd memorized it.

 _"For you to forever stay,"_ continued Sam.

 _"You'll pay it 'til the end of days."_ That line was ominous, and the alien quality that had worked its way into Danny's voice made it more so.

Sam held up the piece of paper they'd written their contract on. _"On this contract place your seal."_ All that was written on it was 'We agree to be friends with each other,' which was something they intended on doing anyway.

 _"Keep the spirit of our deal,"_ intoned Danny. Yeah, the ritual was definitely doing something to him. His core felt _way_ more active than it usually was, even in ghost form.

A dark spot bloomed on the bottom right corner of the page, and slowly resolved into a phantom 'D.'

Cool.

 _"Be my servant, be my slave."_ It was this line that had Sam arguing for a different ritual. She didn't want Danny to be her slave. However, the others either required a lot more stabbing, stuff they didn't have, or looked _way_ more suspicious to Danny, from a ghostly perspective. One or two in that book didn't have anything obviously wrong with them, but repelled Danny for reasons he couldn't articulate.

 _"And aren't you so very brave?"_ The words tumbled out of Danny's mouth without any conscious thought or permission on his part.

 _"Be my wisdom, be my sword,"_ said Sam, unaware of Danny's internal difficulties.

Maybe he should try- _"Forever, if you keep your word."_ -Nope, looked like he couldn't stop, or even delay. He hoped Sam wasn't having the same problem, because that would suck.

Then he remembered what was going to happen next, and his core protested at the very thought. But he discovered he was completely immobile.

 _"I'll give you blood."_ Sam poised the needle (still covered in the gore from Danny's eye) over her hand, and drew it across her palm, leaving a shallow red line. _"I'll give you gold."_ Sam put a few dollar bills and coins (taken from Danny's wallet), down in between them.

Danny's core suddenly swelled with power, but there was nowhere for it to _go_ and it _hurt._ Ice, the only outlet, feathered across his skin. His awareness of everything outside himself, Sam, and the ritual dropped to zero.

 _"I am not so lightly sold."_ As if his friend's blood was a 'light' price! Stupid ritual. It was priceless!

 _"Anything for which you wish,"_ said Sam.

 _"Give me your heart, give me a kiss."_

Because of course the blood magic ritual had to be sealed with a- All other thoughts fled as Sam leaned in to kiss him.

Danny had the feeling of something settling on him. Something comforting, like a good, heavy blanket, strong, like ghost-forged chains, and permanent, like death. All the extra energy his core had built up during the ritual flowed into it, and then some, leaving his core weak and trembling.

The kiss lasted a lot longer than was really necessary.

Which was nice. _Really_ nice. But as soon as Sam pulled away, he collapsed.

Sam managed to catch him. "Danny, are you okay? What's wrong?"

"No," said Danny, his head lolling against her shoulder, which surprised him, because he had meant to say, 'Yes, I'm fine.' "No energy."

He felt himself lose hold of his ghost form, which was really embarrassing in this position; he was only wearing his t-shirt and boxers. His eye slipped closed.

Darn.

.

The first indication Sam had that the ritual was working was when she kissed Danny. She immediately felt energized, refreshed, all the hunger and thirst she had built up since finding herself in front of that cauldron vanishing. She felt connected. Like she could _feel_ Danny. And she liked it.

She liked it a lot.

She probably let the kiss last a lot longer than she had to. The spell didn't specify, after all.

Maybe this wasn't so bad, after all, if they could feel like _this._

But then Danny collapsed. That was bad.

Then he passed out. That was worse.

A wisp of cold air slipped past Danny's lips, tickling the side of Sam's neck. She shivered and tensed, casting her eyes about for the ghost. "C'mon, Danny," she said, shaking him slightly. "Get up, I need you."

Surprisingly, this entreaty roused Danny, and his uninjured eye slowly eased open. "Hn?"

"Strictly speaking," said Vivian, sliding into visibility, "you didn't have to stab him with the needle. That's part of the binding, to keep the ghost from backing out, and he wasn't going to do that, were you, dear?"

She reached out to touch Danny, and he hissed weakly at her. She laughed, tilting back her head, but then leaned forward, pressing her thumb into Danny's forehead. He moaned, and turned his face into Sam's shoulder.

"There," said Vivian, shaking her hand. "He should have access to his powers again." She smiled, teeth sharp. "It will take some time for the two of you to adjust to your new circumstances, but I very much look forward to teaching you once you do, Sam." A larger smile. "Apprentice."

Sam glowered.

Vivian bent down to pick up the book. "I never used this particular ritual," she said. "It requires the spirit to already be invested in the witch, so to speak. Perfect for you. Not so much for me. My mentor was the one who passed it on to me." She snapped the book closed. "He has a good eye, though. One of the ones you were considering would have turned him into a cat."

Sam swallowed.

"Now, I'll leave the two of you to adjust. Don't worry about starving. His power will sustain you until he recovers enough to fly you back home." Vivian's smile grew lazy, indulgent. "Speaking of which, I had a _lot_ of fun there, and I need _some_ way to pass the time. Don't I?" She vanished, cackling.

Danny whimpered.

"Crap," said Sam. Then, more gently, "Hey, Danny, how do you feel?"

"Not great," he said. "Like I just had a marathon fight, and then got beaten with a stick."

"Oh," said Sam. Usually Danny wasn't this honest. Or _quite_ this clingy. He was still wrapped around her. Which, she, surprisingly, didn't mind. "Anything else?"

"I think that maybe I can't lie to you, because I just tried to say 'I'm fine' twice, and couldn't."

" _Oh,_ " said Sam.

"It's okay. You're probably going to have side effects, too. Or maybe it's not a side effect?" He giggled. "It's not a bug, it's a feature? I think I just need to sleep."

"Okay, you do that then."

Danny promptly closed his eyes, and his grip relaxed. Sam stared. Okay, no, she wasn't even going to consider that until she had more evidence.

She sighed, and leaned back until they were both lying on the carpet. One thing at a time. They'd figure this out.

Together.


	12. Chapter 12

**I feel like I told whole bunch of people I wouldn't continue Unearthed. Here I am, continuing Unearthed, like a liar. But not finishing it. Because I can't decide how I want this scenario to end.**

 **All y'all'll have to wait 'til the next event for another continuation, because for the last two Ectober prompts I'm doing completely different things.**

 **Sorry.**

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Scarecrow/Grave Robber

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Detective Collins looked down at the body on the autopsy table. He'd looked at bodies before. Corpses, rather. He and Patterson were APPD's homicide team, and did a lot of death investigations, even if Amity Park hadn't had an actual murder for years. A single casre of involuntary manslaughter, yes, several instances of assault, yes, a good number of accidental deaths, yes, murder, no.

Apparently, the knowledge that a so-called permanent solution to a problem might not be all that permanent, and that the problem might come back with superpowers was enough to put a damper on that kind of thing.

The corpse wasn't exactly a normal one, and it hadn't come to police attention in the normal way. Still, Collins was just doing his job.

So why the hell did he feel like a damn graverobber?

"Got anything for us, Molly?" he asked the ME.

"If you mean a cause of death, that's a hard no," said the red-haired woman. "If you mean a whole bunch of weird stuff, then yes. This is the strangest body I've ever seen. I think I'm going to have to call out for a second opinion."

Collins and Patterson exchanged looks.

"I think you'd better not," said Patterson. "This is the kind of thing that should stay in Amity Park."

Molly eyed the other woman shrewdly. "The rumors are true, then?"

Collins cleared his throat. "What rumors?"

"This is Phantom's body."

"Where did you hear that?" asked Collins.

At the same time Patterson said, "So he claims."

"The paramedics told me," said Molly. "It's been all over the hospital."

Great. As if this case wasn't 'interesting' enough. "What's so weird about the body?" he asked, bringing them back to the topic at hand.

"Well, first off, half of it's missing."

Collins looked down at the body. As far as he could tell, all of it was there, even if it was far from adult-sized.

"I know what you're thinking," said Molly. "I get it. I didn't notice at first, either, not until I took the x-rays. His bones are half as dense at they should be. At first I thought that he just had some kind of bone disease- that would make identification easier, right?- but then I started weighing other parts of him, and his _everything_ only weighs about half as much as it should for a teenager of his height."

"Are you sure that's not just because of decay? Or because he was burned?" asked Patterson.

"Yes, I'm sure. He's pretty well preserved actually."

"Is he?" asked Collins, dubiously, looking at the blackened and whithered corpse.

"Yeah. What you're seeing here," she gestured at one of the corpse's arms, "it isn't skin. I know he looks burnt, but he's actually got all his layers. This is something he was wearing. I've sent a sample out for analysis, but I think it's mostly plastic and cloth."

Patterson sighed. "Guess that rules out burning to death, or someone trying to burn the body afterwards. What could have caused the, uh, halving?"

Molly shrugged. "Might have to do with how he died, or becoming a ghost. I don't know. I only deal with the bodies of the dead, not their spirits. You'll have to ask the Fenton, or the GIW."

"Anything else?" asked Collins.

Molly shrugged. "I found a lot of ectoplasm residue on him, and something that _might_ be lichtenberg figures, but I won't know for sure until I can get his clothing off, and I'm not sure we want to do that until we figure out what happened to them and what they're made of."

"Right," said Collins. "Good call."

"Everything else is in here," said Molly, handing the file to Patterson. "But, just so you know, he _does_ have the proper height, age, and body type to be Phantom."

"Any que-" the phone in the back office rang, cutting Molly off. She groaned. "Hold that thought." She ran off into the other room and shut the door.

"Sooooo," said Patterson, playing with the end of her braid. "Who gets to interview the Fentons?"

"Both of us," said Collins, looking at Molly's report. She hadn't written anything about how long the kid had been dead.

"Aw, you're no fu-"

The temperature of the already-cold room dropped, and all of Collins' hairs stood on end, indicators of an agitated and _very_ close ghost. Both Collins and Patterson had their ectoguns (standard issue for APPD) out in second.

A ghost shimmered into view on the other side of the examination table.

"You need to stop this," he said, green eyes boring first into Collins', then Patterson's. "People are going to get hurt."

"Is that a threat?" asked Collins.

Phantom recoiled as if slapped. The shock faded, and his face settled into a more standard offended scowl.

"No, of course not. It doesn't make it any less true. So _stop._ "

"We can't."

"Why _not?_ " asked Phantom, aggrieved. "It isn't like this is about justice. I don't _need_ justice. It was an _accident._ "

"Because we don't know who this is, and we don't know who you are," said Collins. He did not add that, even if the body on the table had belonged to Phantom, they could not take his word that his death had been an accident.

Phantom threw up his hands. "I'm the guy who's been protecting Amity Park from ghost attacks for the last two years! And that's my..." he faltered. "My, um. My c- My body," he finished quietly. He took a deep breath, and some of his earlier fire came back. "Why would I lie?"

Collins could think of dozens of reasons, up to and including Phantom being the killer, though he doubted the young ghost had a murderous bone in his body. Either of them.

"It would _really help_ ," said Patterson, "if you could come down to the station to be interviewed."

Phantom's expression softened. "If it would help-" he broke off and shook himself. "I'll think about it." He frowned down at the body, looking rather ill.

"Is there any proof you have that this _is_ your body?" asked Collins, slowly, more cautious than Patterson. He remembered hearing somewhere that ghosts didn't like being reminded of their deaths.

Phantom shifted slightly, and his gaze slid away from the corpse. "Other than knowing you had found... it, and being able to feel it? Not..." He trailed off, rubbing a circle into the palm of his left hand. Jerkily, he tugged off the glove. He kept his hand curled tight, and half hidden, as he stared down at the ground. Then he spread out his fingers, and thrust his hand at Collins. "This," he said. "It'll be the same on... it... as me."

In the center of Phantom's palm was a burnt-in star. It had seven points that faded out to lightning bolts as they twined up his arm, disappearing under his jumpsuit.

"Is that from when you died?" asked Patterson.

All the lights in the room flickered, and the the ghost hissed before vanishing. A light bulb near the door burst in a spray of glass.

The temperature returned to normal levels.

"What the hell, Patterson? You don't ask a ghost about their death. And what was the whole 'it'll really help' thing?"

"Sorry," said Patterson. "I know, I know, but how often do you get to interview the victim of one of these things?"

"Literally all the time. We do assault cases ninety percent of the time."

"When you put it that way..." Patterson grimaced. "The 'help' thing... Well, ghosts are supposed to be governed by their Obsessions, right? I took a class on that, a couple of months ago. Anyway, there's big speculation that Phantom's Obsession is heroism, or helping people. I thought maybe I could use it. It almost worked. You saw how he considered it."

"Yeah," said Collins. He rubbed his face, thinking.

Phantom said he could feel the body. How much could he feel? If he could just tell what was happening to it, that wouldn't be so bad. But if he could feel it like it was still his body? That sounded like torture.

Molly walked back into the room. She frowned. "What happened?"

"Phantom decided to pay us a visit. Say, Molly, I know you don't want to strip off his clothes, yet, but if you could just clean off his left hand..."

.

"So," said Collins, drumming his hands on the steering wheel. "Let's recap. What do we know?"

"The body is the right age, sex, and size to be Phantom, and has the same scars as Phantom," said Patterson. "The body is really weird and has a lot of ectoplasmic residue on it. Molly can't tell how long it's been dead. Forensics thinks it's been there two years, based on soil settling and a picture search. The cairn only started showing up around then, at the end of summer."

"Which is before the ghosts started to be a big thing," added Collins.

"Which makes the ectoplasm even weirder."

"And now, we're consulting with the only ghost experts in town who aren't the GIW to find out what could have caused that."

"But, unfortunately, said ghost experts are also the only people in town who had access to ectoplasm before the ghosts showed up."

"Which means they're suspects," finished Collins, moving from knowledge into theory. He sighed. "Of course, since Phantom claims to have buried his own body, he could have left the ectoplasmic residue."

"It's also possible some other ghost hunter did it," said Patterson. "The GIW _did_ exist before the ghosts became a problem. Or it could just be a natural result of turning into a ghost."

"Right," said Collins. "So, who's going to ring the doorbell?"

The two detectives looked up at the front door of Fentonworks. Everybody knew what happened to people who rang the Fentons' doorbell.

Patterson sighed. As the more junior of the pair, she knew how this was going to pan out. "I'll do it."

She got out of the car, and went up the stair. Collins followed, but stayed a safe distance back.

With an air of resignation, Patterson pressed the doorbell.

Surprisingly, the door opening did not herald a flood of green goo. One of the Fenton children had opened the door. The boy. An unidentifiable expression passed over his face before he turned and shouted, "Mom! Dad! The police are here to see you!"

Odd. How did he know Collins and Patterson were detectives? They didn't have their badges displayed.

He scampered off as Jack Fenton bounded to the door. "Hi there!" boomed the big man. "Are you here to talk about ghosts?"

"Yes, actually."

.

The Fentons, once you got past the goo, were actually very hospitable. Maddie brought out tea and cookies, and sat the detectives down in the living room.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked.

Collins and Patterson exchanged a glance.

"We were wondering," said Collins, "if there is any way to tell if someone has become a ghost by looking at their corpse."

Maddie clicked her tongue. "That's a common misconception. People don't _become_ ghosts. They _leave_ ghosts. Ghosts are impressions on ectoplasm, not people."

There was a very faint, unamused scoff from above, and Collins looked up to see the Fentons' son crouched behind the banister of the stairs. He noticed Collins' gaze and fled.

Interesting.

Meanwhile, Jack and Maddie's explanation was winding down. "But to answer your question, no. There's no way to tell if a person's death produced a ghost unless you encounter the ghost. The body would be completely normal. Is this about the body you found in William Park?"

Collins frowned. It was easy to forget how sharp the Fentons were.

"Yes," he said, deciding it wouldn't do any good to hide the fact.

"And you think it's ghost related somehow?" pressed Maddie.

"A ghost claimed the body was theirs."

"Hm," said Maddie, thoughtful.

"Well, it isn't impossible for a ghost to form with the Obsession of finding the person that murdered the human they are modeled on," said Jack. "I'm actually surprised you didn't encounter one sooner."

"The ghost in question wanted us to stop investigating," said Collins, watching their reactions. He wondered if he was revealing too much, but he really did need more information about ghosts and he refused to go to the GIW unless it was absolutely necessary. He'd talk to the cults (there were many in Amity Park, several of which were dedicated primarily to Phantom) first.

Maddie frowned. "That can't be right. What ghost was it?"

"Phantom," said Collins.

Jack and Maddie were already shaking their heads.

"That's impossible," said Jack.

"There are record of Phantom going back to the beginning of human history. Farther, even." Maddie got up and walked to a bookshelf, where she pulled out a large heavy book. She thumped it down on the coffee table, and began to thumb through the pages. "Here, look. This town in China even used effigies of him as a kind of 'spirit scarecrow.' Apparently he would show up periodically to fight 'evil spirits.' Ghosts. Just like now."

The dolls on the page _did_ bear a shocking resemblance to Phantom. Maddie turned the page, and another. Each one had pictures of Phantom, though all in different styles, and clearly all from different cultures.

"There aren't a lot of these, true," said Maddie, "and when we were in college, a lot of it was dismissed as a hoax. But they _existed_ when we were in college."

"So either _our_ Phantom is the same, or he's imitating the legend," said Jack, "and the legend was never well known."

"We prefer the former theory, obviously." She sat down and leaned back in her chair. "Now, as for the body, normally, if this was any other ghost, I would say that they caused the death, but..." She pursed her lips, then shrugged. "As dangerous and inhuman as Phantom is, I doubt it. We are fairly confident his Obsession falls in the lines of 'protecting people,' and that wouldn't allow murder."

"He's definitely involved somehow, though," said Jack. "It's possible he's protecting the killer."

.

"I feel like we know less now than we did before," complained Patterson.

"Yeah..." said Collins. "Did you notice their kid? Did he seem a little off to you?"

"Maybe a bit," said Patterson, playing with the end of her braid. She paused, looking back at the Fenton house. "You know, I saw this theory on a website once," she said, slowly.

"What kind of website?"

"Conspiracy, I think, but it could have been a cult one. You know how it is. The theory was that the Fenton's son was secretly Phantom. The kid who posted it got laughed off, of course, but... Y'know, I think it _was_ picked up by a cult or two. They're hard to keep track of. They keep having those schisms, and merging, and, you know."

"The Fenton kid _would_ have had access to ectoplasm before the ghosts showed up," said Collins. Could his theory about Phantom masquerading as one of the living be correct?

"I guess anyone slimed by the Fentons would have, too, though," said Patterson.

"Right. Wonderful. You want to talk to the Cult Division first, or start interviewing kids?"

"Is the 'Cult Division' still Cameron Daily and his computer?"

"You know it is."

"Let's get started on those kids."

.

"Well," said Danny talking to Sam and Tucker over the Fenton Phones, "they're getting clues, but they're buried in so much junk that they're useless, or they're completely inconclusive."

"That's good, right?" said Tucker.

"Not if they think I _killed_ someone!"

"It doesn't quite sound like that's what they think," said Sam. "Even your parents don't think that."

Which had been _really_ nice, actually. Which was sad. But, hey, odd manifestation of post-human consciousness was a step up from _evil_ manifestation of post-human consciousness. Right?

"They think I'm covering up a murder, then, Sam. That's just as bad." His tail twitched and flicked as he rode invisibly on top of the detectives' car. Ever since his... that... had been dug up, he had felt uneasy. Anxious.

Restless.

Basically, what was dead people were supposed to feel like when their remains were disturbed.

"I can't just go on letting them think that," said Danny.

" _Don't._ You're just going to get yourself into more trouble," cautioned Sam.

Danny bit his lip. "It's just an interview," he said, eyeing the police station. "It isn't like they can arrest me."

He flew in.


	13. Chapter 13

Candlelight/Exorcism

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Danny sniffed, and wrinkled his nose. He'd retreated upstairs, but the smell had worked its way into his room. It wasn't enough that Mom's weird friend from college was visiting today (and Mom had picked her up straight from Vlad's, at that!) but she had to fill the house up with scented candles and incense.

The woman called Serena Goodrich had apparently been the 'fourth leg' of the Ghost Research Club his parents and Vlad had belonged to, and she'd been the occult expert. A self-proclaimed psychic and medium.

Personally, Danny didn't think much of her abilities if she couldn't tell what he and Vlad were (she said she left Vlad's because they got into an argument), but she... unsettled him. He disliked her on sight. He wasn't entirely sure why, except for her association with Vlad. But once she started talking about ghosts she had exorcised, monopolizing Mom's time, burning all that incense, and lighting all those candles, he felt his dislike was justified.

He sniffed again, more fiercely. He could just leave, take a flight around town, join Jazz at the library (where she had retreated an hour hence), or hang out with Sam and Tucker, but the idea of leaving her unsupervised in _his_ house with _his_ parents grated on him. True, he was hiding out up here, out of sight, but at least he'd be around if she showed her true colors and did something nasty, like set the house on fire with all her candles. It was a ghost thing.

Besides, this was _supposed_ to be his day to hang out with Mom and Dad. He'd worked hard to take care of all the ghosts and arrange for some of the warriors from the Far Frozen to guard the other side of the portal from unwanted visitors. There were still the natural portals, true, but he'd planned on letting Valerie take care of those unless something really big came through, and most of those opened up near the Fenton Portal on the Ghost Zone side, anyway. Near enough for the yetis to look after them for a day.

Instead, he was up here, trying to ignore irritating odors for long enough to get a head start on his English homework. He sneezed. Once, twice, three times. He groaned, rubbing his nose. He bet that woman had put anti-ghost herbs into her candles, or something. Giving him an allergic reaction... stupid... He grumbled under his breath.

"Danny?" called Mom from downstairs. "Can you come down? We need your help."

Danny groaned again, more loudly, at the thought of having to _descend_ into the _smog._

"Coming!" he said. He got up from his desk, and opened the door. Ugh, it _was_ worse outside his room. He sneezed again, eyes watering. He was _definitely_ allergic to something in those candles.

He made his way down the stairs coughing, and glared at some candles burning unattended in the living room. With a flick of thought, he put them out with a gust of wind, and smiled. He was getting better at controlling his haunt.

"Where are you guys?" he asked.

"Kitchen!" called Mom.

Danny stepped into the other room.

That was a mistake.

He felt like he had put his foot down on hot lighting, a current running up his leg and spine, directly to his core, where it transformed into a vice and _squeezed._ He dropped to his hands and knees, gasping, unable to hide the sudden and unexpected pain. Each breath brought more cloying smoke into his lungs, and his head swam with it.

"See?" crowed the not-so-fake psychic. "See how he's affected? I _told_ you, Maddie. He's been possessed." She sounded far too happy about that. "Sit up, let us look at you."

Against his will, his body shuffled back from all fours to sit cross-legged on the floor. He could see, now, that a circle with a pentagram had been drawn on the tile floor with something white. Paint, maybe, not chalk. In between when he had fallen and now, someone had put candles on each point of the star. Something wet ran from his eyes and nose. He lifted his hand to wipe it away.

"Stop that," snapped the woman, brushing back her long fake blonde hair.

His hand fell heavily into his lap.

"Look, Maddie," said Dad. "There's traces of ectoplasm in his blood and tears. That doesn't happen in normal overshadowing."

Mom looked troubled. "Why is he bleeding?"

"It's the ghost trying to escape," said the woman, dismissively, "to force the host to move. Don't worry, we'll get rid of the ghost."

Danny opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, trying to communicate to his parents with just his eyes. He had never seriously considered _exorcism_ as a way to go, but it sounded _not fun_ and he was scared. His vision wavered with unshed tears.

"What is you name?" asked the woman as she sat down in front of Danny, just outside the circle.

"Danny." The word was practically pulled from his mouth.

The woman looked over her shoulder at Danny's parents. "This happens sometimes. What is your _other_ name?"

"Fenton," ground out Danny. He apparently had _some_ control, even like this. "What are you _doing-"_

"Speak only to answer the questions I ask, spirit," ordered the woman, confidently.

Danny's mouth snapped shut, and he swallowed. His eyes stung, whether from the the haze of smoke in the air, his tears, or both, he didn't know. He closed his eyes, hard, hoping at least to be able to see better.

He closed his eyes-

And he _saw._

The thing sitting in front of him wasn't a woman, and certainly wasn't Serena Goodrich. It wasn't human. It wasn't a ghost. It was a hole in the world covered by empty meat, and it was _hungry._

A hole in the world, like the portal downstairs. Like Danny _._

Except he'd been added to, hadn't he? He was human and ghost, and other things besides, and this, in front of him, most certainly was _not._ It was his antithesis. His opposite. _Wrong._ It didn't lead to the Ghost Zone, to the Infinite Realms. It lead to The Place That Is Not, to the Red Country, to the Unspoken Land, to the Unworld.

Inside Danny, a shift took place. The ghostly part of him was curled in on itself, terrified. His human element was confused, and, frankly, out of its depth. The parts of him that were both and neither moved forward, taking charge.

"What is your _full_ name, spirit?" asked the thing wearing a woman's body.

Danny opened his eyes. "My name's Danny!" he said, cheerily. "What's your's?" His dislike made more sense now. He must have been able to feel this thing under its human disguise.

It imitated a sigh. "This is probably the reason it fixated on your son, the-"

"Because it sure as heck isn't Serena Goodrich," interrupted Danny.

The thing glared at him, then sneered. "Your tricks won't work here, ghost."

Danny tilted his head to one side. Changing his nature had freed him from some of his bonds, but not all of them. "Mom?" he said, looking up at her. "Did you see Vlad when you picked this thing up?"

"Don't answer it, that's how they gain power over you."

"Because I think he might be dead."

The phone started to ring. Jack, the closest, picked it up. "Hello? I'm afraid this isn't a good time- What do you mean, Vladdie's dead?" He froze for a moment, listening to the voice on the other end of the line, then dropped the phone and whipped out an ectogun. Maddie copied the motion.

Not-Serena now had two giant ectoguns pointed at the back of her head.

"It isn't like I lied to you," it said. "This thing is no more human than I. I'm doing you a favor by getting rid of it."

"I'm infinitely more human than you. You aren't what you eat. No matter how many people you eat."

The thing snarled, red that wasn't red bleeding into its stolen irises. "It doesn't matter. I have you in my jaws. I know your name. It's only a matter of time."

"Then I think you've bitten off more than you can chew," replied Danny, calmly.

 _"Daniel Janus James Fenton-Phantom."_

Danny hissed in pain as his core tugged towards the hole. Two ectoguns went off. Their shots never seemed to hit the Serena-thing. To all the world, they looked like they had vanished before hitting it. But Danny was not all the world. He could see, and he saw the ectoblasts vanishing down the hole's gaping maw.

The candles around the circle flared tall and red, their odor increasing. Blood blossoms. Now that he understood, he saw how they were connected to the World That Was Not A World.

"This is _my_ house," he said, through gritted teeth. The candles went out, and the electric lights flickered. A sense of cold fell on the room. "Did you think I'd be as easy as Vlad?"

His awareness spread down and out, briefly brushing the portal before spreading out along the floor. Tiles lit up, cold green fire flicking along their edges, making a rough circle around the door to the Unworld. Mom and Dad jumped back.

"No. You're better. You'll fill me."

"Nothing could fill you," said Danny, disgusted.

"You're just like me."

"I'm really not."

"A door to another place."

That was... true enough. "I added where you consumed." He needed a little more to make this work. "I _am_ Danny Fenton. You cannot possibly call yourself Serena Goodrich."

"What does it feel like, to be a door to heaven?"

The Infinite Realms, as remarkable as the were, were most definitely not heaven. "What is your _name?_ "

"I am Gula, the Devourer! And you shall not escape me, Phantom! I will feast on you and your world!"

"Alright, Gula, the Devourer. Bye, Gula, the Devourer."

He pushed on the hole, and, in the basement, the portal whined, the vibrations shaking the entire house. The Serena-thing screeched and fell.

Slowly, the house, and Danny, returned to normal. He curled in on himself, panting. This was supposed to be his day off, darn it.

He looked up at Mom and Dad. Were those their 'two supernatural entities, one of whom is our son who we love and cherish, just had a grudge match in our kitchen' faces, or their 'the supernatural entity possessing our son just killed our college friend in our kitchen' faces?

Because all semblance of life had fled from the body of Serena Goodrich.

"Mom?" he asked, nervously. "Dad?"

"What," said Maddie. "What was that?"

Her weapon wasn't pointed at him. That was a good sign.

"A hole in the world," said Danny. "What happens when a portal goes wrong." He pushed himself up slightly.

"And what are you?"

"She called you Phantom," added Dad.

Danny swallowed, and sat up the rest of the way.

"How long have you been dead?"

"That's- I- I'm not _really_ dead. Not entirely, but-" he licked his lips, and looked down. "I'm what happens when a portal goes _right_." He took a deep breath. "I am still me, I'm just... more, I guess."

There was a long silence, and Danny didn't dare look up. Something moved towards him, and he flinched, coming up against the barrier behind him, which, for some reason, was still active.

He curled up again, afraid. He was trapped, and exposed, and the smoke was still in his lungs, and-

The barrier dropped. He tilted back without the support, and almost fell, but Mom caught him and pulled him into a hug.

"It's okay, sweetie, it's okay. I'm sorry we didn't help you more."

"But you did, by not believing it anymore. That took away a lot of its power over me, I think."

"It's lucky the police called when they did, then!" said Dad, far too loud. "The police!" He scooped the phone up off the floor, put it to his ear, and frowned at it. "Dial tone?"

"Not luck, exactly," said Danny. "It was me. I can- I can do stuff like that. Haunted house stuff. You should probably call them, though. And check on Vlad. I really hope he's not dead." Danny coughed.

Mom inhaled shakily. "You have a lot of explaining to do, young man." She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

Danny knew the feeling.

"Okay, but can we do it outside? Away from all this smoke?"

"Smoke?"

"You don't see it?" said Danny.

Mom sighed, and stood, helping Danny up. "I suppose we need to get our story straight for the police, too. Oh, Serena..."

"I'm sorry," said Danny.

"Let's go outside, son," said Dad.

"Okay."


End file.
